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Unfortunately there is a general trend towards removing colorful icons and I hate that trend with a passion. Take for example the setting menu from stock Andro

Unfortunately there is a general trend towards removing colorful icons and I hate that trend with a passion. Take for example the setting menu from stock Android: Yes, there are still icon but they all have the same color and it is really difficult to tell them apart. Every time I go to settings I have to search around until I find the settings I was looking for. If it had colorful icons then navigation would be easier because my brain would learn "blue icon = keyboard settings" Or take Chrome on Android: Open Chrome, press the three dots on the bottom right for the menu and try to find the 'search in page' entry. Every time i wanna search something I have to read half of the menu items to find the search function... If it would have a distinct icon it would be much easier to find.

kakarot 9y ago
My bookmarks bar is a row of unlabeled favicons arranged by color. Beautiful and extremely efficient. I only need to store the color of an icon in my head, not the icon itself or the url. If this ever gets taken away from me I will become extremely cross.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  I don't use bookmark bars anymore, but when I did I remember noticing that most things I bookmarked were blue for some reason. Maybe that's the reason I stopped finding it useful.
  - rbritton 9y ago
    It's a couple years old now, but there's a similar trend towards certain colors in the iOS universe too: http://hboon.com/ios-app-icon-colors-in-the-year-2015/ http://hboon.com/ios-app-icon-colors-in-the-year-2015/
- icelancer 9y ago
  This is exactly what I do. I am floored to hear that people are considering moving away from favicons. It's a tremendous space saver. The all-out war on bookmarks and the original ways we organized information back in the 90s on the web is getting to be absurd.
  - kakarot 9y ago
    Not to mention the fact that, as others have said, scanning your tabs for images is much, much quicker than scanning text. Favicons also give your site character and create a lasting visual impression of your brand. They are as important as a logo. Seems like a major step backwards.
- srathi 9y ago
  I'd love to look at your bookbar bar, if you are comfortable sharing a screenshot. I'm trying to arrange my bookmark bar since quite a while and can use some pointers from your setup.
  - kakarot 9y ago
    do you have an email I can send it to?
- kalleboo 9y ago
  Since Safari doesn't show favicons in the bookmarks bar, I use emoji to get the same effect
  - kakarot 9y ago
    I have a grotesque curiosity as to what that may look like, if you wouldn't mind sharing.
    - wingworks 9y ago
      https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=emoji+bookmarks+safari&safe=off&rlz=1C5CHFA_enNZ741NZ742&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjvIn84drVAhVEVbwKHTxvBLcQ_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=776&dpr=2#imgrc=6qahQJ1hyY4eCM https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=emoji+bookmarks+safari&saf...:
wlesieutre 9y ago
Outlook is another terrible offender. Maybe for mailboxes in the sidebar it didn't add much, but the icons were really helpful if you're using the CRM integration.
frik 9y ago
All Microsoft products after 2010 are worst offenders. The nice Office 2010 and Windows 7 and beautiful high res icons and very nice color schemes - gone. I cannot stand the Win8/10 and Office 2016 bland look and mix of legacy icons botched with a Photoshop filter to make them grayscale and new boring grayscale icons. Everything looks white and grayish, some parts of the window can be dragged around, some are click-able ...but one only knows by try-and-error. Well I reverted back to Win7 & Office 2010 - so much more pleasing to my eyes.
- kccqzy 9y ago
  I cannot agree more. Recently I was just happening to run a VM in Hyper-V where the VM is displaying a maximized window. There is literally no boundary between the hyper-V toolbar and the title bar of the window inside the VM. It is infuriating because I keep dragging the wrong thing. Windows 7's appearance may not be "modern", or it may be too busy, but it looks so much better to my eyes too.
conradfr 9y ago
That's what I dislike with the recent Jetbrains products. Designer replied they were fixing the problem of the colorful icons being too "distracting". Still don't understand how a grey UI with grey icons is better...
fredley 9y ago
Older versions of Android had colourful icons, but often those colours changed between versions. This is the worst possible sin, and possibly part of why they don't any more.
gurkendoktor 9y ago
A frustrating trend indeed. I really miss colours in the macOS Finder: The monochrome sidebar is frustrating, the default folders (Pictures, Music etc) are harder to distinguish than in 10.4, and Finder colour labels have been replaced by tiny "tag" bubbles. This was so much easier to scan at a glance: http://tb43.com/wp-content/files/finder_011.png http://tb43.com/wp-content/files/finder_011.png It's the other way around on mobile. Icons are still colourful (although too many are blue-on-white), but they all have the same shape, and Apple hates icon labels with a passion. In iOS 11, they are almost impossible to read on the stock wallpaper, and the new Dock gets rid of them altogether: http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iOS-11-Home-screen-iPhone-iPad.jpg http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iO... When I am a little low on energy, I regularly catch myself tapping the wrong iOS app just because it has the right colours at a glance. Icons should just always have both a colour and a shape, no matter how much it frustrates designers.
libeclipse 9y ago
I agree with you broadly, but not about the android settings. I mean, they just look so much better this way (Nougat). Perhaps your requirements would be better addressed in the accessibility settings. Have you tried turning high contrast on? For most of us, the better looking icons are a non-issue. I personally don't even look at them to navigate, I can read the options.
- yoodenvranx 9y ago
  > I mean, they just look so much better this way (Nougat) But that's exactly the problem. On furst glance it looks better but when you search for something then 20 icons of the same color just don't work that good. Give me ugly but visual distinct icons and I would be much happier.
cbcoutinho 9y ago
Even more frustrating is that the names of the options is different across versions of chrome. On my phone it's called 'find in page' instead of 'search in page'
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Kinda cracks me up when I see Google referenced in a design or UX conversation (read: article).

kakarot 9y ago

My bookmarks bar is a row of unlabeled favicons arranged by color. Beautiful and extremely efficient. I only need to store the color of an icon in my head, not the icon itself or the url. If this ever gets taken away from me I will become extremely cross.

jasonkostempski 9y ago
I don't use bookmark bars anymore, but when I did I remember noticing that most things I bookmarked were blue for some reason. Maybe that's the reason I stopped finding it useful.
- rbritton 9y ago
  It's a couple years old now, but there's a similar trend towards certain colors in the iOS universe too: http://hboon.com/ios-app-icon-colors-in-the-year-2015/ http://hboon.com/ios-app-icon-colors-in-the-year-2015/
icelancer 9y ago
This is exactly what I do. I am floored to hear that people are considering moving away from favicons. It's a tremendous space saver. The all-out war on bookmarks and the original ways we organized information back in the 90s on the web is getting to be absurd.
- kakarot 9y ago
  Not to mention the fact that, as others have said, scanning your tabs for images is much, much quicker than scanning text. Favicons also give your site character and create a lasting visual impression of your brand. They are as important as a logo. Seems like a major step backwards.
srathi 9y ago
I'd love to look at your bookbar bar, if you are comfortable sharing a screenshot. I'm trying to arrange my bookmark bar since quite a while and can use some pointers from your setup.
- kakarot 9y ago
  do you have an email I can send it to?
kalleboo 9y ago
Since Safari doesn't show favicons in the bookmarks bar, I use emoji to get the same effect
- kakarot 9y ago
  I have a grotesque curiosity as to what that may look like, if you wouldn't mind sharing.
  - wingworks 9y ago
    https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=emoji+bookmarks+safari&safe=off&rlz=1C5CHFA_enNZ741NZ742&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjvIn84drVAhVEVbwKHTxvBLcQ_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=776&dpr=2#imgrc=6qahQJ1hyY4eCM https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=emoji+bookmarks+safari&saf...:

wlesieutre 9y ago

Outlook is another terrible offender. Maybe for mailboxes in the sidebar it didn't add much, but the icons were really helpful if you're using the CRM integration.

frik 9y ago

All Microsoft products after 2010 are worst offenders. The nice Office 2010 and Windows 7 and beautiful high res icons and very nice color schemes - gone. I cannot stand the Win8/10 and Office 2016 bland look and mix of legacy icons botched with a Photoshop filter to make them grayscale and new boring grayscale icons. Everything looks white and grayish, some parts of the window can be dragged around, some are click-able ...but one only knows by try-and-error. Well I reverted back to Win7 & Office 2010 - so much more pleasing to my eyes.

kccqzy 9y ago
I cannot agree more. Recently I was just happening to run a VM in Hyper-V where the VM is displaying a maximized window. There is literally no boundary between the hyper-V toolbar and the title bar of the window inside the VM. It is infuriating because I keep dragging the wrong thing. Windows 7's appearance may not be "modern", or it may be too busy, but it looks so much better to my eyes too.

conradfr 9y ago

That's what I dislike with the recent Jetbrains products. Designer replied they were fixing the problem of the colorful icons being too "distracting". Still don't understand how a grey UI with grey icons is better...

fredley 9y ago

Older versions of Android had colourful icons, but often those colours changed between versions. This is the worst possible sin, and possibly part of why they don't any more.

gurkendoktor 9y ago

A frustrating trend indeed. I really miss colours in the macOS Finder: The monochrome sidebar is frustrating, the default folders (Pictures, Music etc) are harder to distinguish than in 10.4, and Finder colour labels have been replaced by tiny "tag" bubbles. This was so much easier to scan at a glance: http://tb43.com/wp-content/files/finder_011.png http://tb43.com/wp-content/files/finder_011.png It's the other way around on mobile. Icons are still colourful (although too many are blue-on-white), but they all have the same shape, and Apple hates icon labels with a passion. In iOS 11, they are almost impossible to read on the stock wallpaper, and the new Dock gets rid of them altogether: http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iOS-11-Home-screen-iPhone-iPad.jpg http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iO... When I am a little low on energy, I regularly catch myself tapping the wrong iOS app just because it has the right colours at a glance. Icons should just always have both a colour and a shape, no matter how much it frustrates designers.

libeclipse 9y ago

I agree with you broadly, but not about the android settings. I mean, they just look so much better this way (Nougat). Perhaps your requirements would be better addressed in the accessibility settings. Have you tried turning high contrast on? For most of us, the better looking icons are a non-issue. I personally don't even look at them to navigate, I can read the options.

yoodenvranx 9y ago
> I mean, they just look so much better this way (Nougat) But that's exactly the problem. On furst glance it looks better but when you search for something then 20 icons of the same color just don't work that good. Give me ugly but visual distinct icons and I would be much happier.

cbcoutinho 9y ago

Even more frustrating is that the names of the options is different across versions of chrome. On my phone it's called 'find in page' instead of 'search in page'

chiefalchemist 9y ago
Kinda cracks me up when I see Google referenced in a design or UX conversation (read: article).